I'm a geochemist. In the past ten years I've fixed mass spectrometers, blasted sapphires with a laser beam, explored for uranium in a nature reserve, and measured growth patterns in fish ears, and helped design the next generation of the world's most advanced ion probe. My main interest is in-situ mass spectrometry, but I have a soft spot in my heart for thermodynamics, drillers, and cosmochemistry.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

crystallographic sector zoning is a phenomenon that causes
all sorts of headaches for geochemists and petrologists. Basically, as different crystallographic
faces grow in a medium (e.g. magma), they have different selectivities for different
elements. If you want to measure how
much of a particular element a growing crystal scavenges from its surrounding,
and you don’t measure all sectors, or don’t know their true relative volume,
this can cause errors.

However, at least two scientists have turned this around,
and used the zoning as a feature, not a problem. Hinsberg and Schumacher (2007) treat the
different sectors as co-existing minerals, calculate D values between them, and
note that the D values are temperature dependent. Ta da! They now have a single crystal geothermometer
that records T over the growth of the mineral.
If life hands you lemons, compare the sections and build a new tool.

Saturday, May 03, 2014

There has been a minor brouhaha in the American media this
week about the refusal for gunshops to sell the Armatix “smart” gun. These revolve around fears that the sale of
this weapon will restrict consumer choice in other, non-adjacent states.

This is not surprising.
The tactic of making a product that nobody wants to buy, and them
compelling its purchase through legislation is not new. Nor is it unique to liberals; rather is
practiced by all sides of politics on everything from health insurance to
self-propelled artillery to NASA rockets. And this is where the smart gun falls
down.

Compared to every other smart product to hit the market in
the last ten years, the smart gun is really, really fucking stupid. It make no
attempt at all to leverage the information revolution to its core utility, in
the way that smart phones, smart glasses, smart cars, and smart everything else
do. So unsurprisingly, not even people
who like guns want to but a smart gun.

It doesn't have to be that way. There is no reason a well-designed actual
smart gun can’t be so compelling, useful, and clever that everyone with even a
remote interest in physics would want to have one. A gun with integrated
display/user interface/ cameras/ standard hand-held computer sensors could to
all sorts of amazing things not currently available to current weapons.

Just off the top of my dome, these include:

Integrated tiltmeter/ compass/ gps system that shows you
(on a map), where rounds are expected to fall when the gun is pointed into the
air.

-and any other targets where the shooter wants an extra
layer of protection against accidents.

There are all sorts of totally awesome things you could do
with a computer-integrated, geospatially aware weapon. And the fact that guns are exempt from
consumer protection laws should only increase innovation in this area. Done properly, a genuinely smart gun could
make uncomputerized guns as obsolete as flip phones.

Disclaimer:

All opinions, measurements, figures, and facts on this page are the personal opinions of Charles W. Magee, Jr, and do not represent the views of any of his employers: past, present, present-but-about-to-be-past, or future. None of the content herein has been subject to peer review, and should be treated with caution or derision. Any passing mention of OSHA code violations, criminal activities, unethical or unscientific behavior, or the clandestine Australian nuclear weapons program are fictions created to make rhetorical points, and do not represent the reality of my, or anyone else's, workplace. Do not attempt any scientific protocols described herein at home, with the exception of the chocolate chip cookie recipe. Do not apply the products of that protocol to individuals with heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or cholesterol, egg, wheat, dairy, or chocolate allergies. Do not view this blog continuously for more than 45 minutes without stretching and taking other precautions to prevent computer-related chronic injury.
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